


2/14/2001

by luckyfiftytwo



Category: Charmed (TV 1998)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckyfiftytwo/pseuds/luckyfiftytwo
Summary: Prue Halliwell is definitely not in love with Cole Turner. Do not check the top drawer of her vanity.
Relationships: Prue Halliwell/Cole Turner
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	2/14/2001

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I didn't proofread this one either it is 100% a collection of vibes containing the three most fun relationship elements clownery denial and a sappy ending. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone who voted in the rare pair poll but happy Valentine's Day SPECIFICALLY to the person who ensured this ship would win. This one's 4 u.

Somehow it was already February. Prue felt like she had gotten a bit worse at telling time since, well, since everything. Since becoming a witch. Since saving the world every week. Since quitting her stable nine to five in favor of freelance photography. Since- no. She wasn’t listing the last reason. He didn’t deserve it. Every other item on the list was of greater significance, important, life-altering, grand pieces of the puzzle that would forever define Prue. Cole did not deserve a place on that list. He was… a blip. A mistake. A glitch in the system. Something that shouldn’t have happened, something that she would soon forget. Nothing about Cole held meaning her life; nothing they had shared had meant anything. Clearly. He did not deserve a place on that list, hell, he didn’t deserve a place in her life. Not that she would offer one up, because she didn’t- she didn’t- she didn’t love Cole. She didn’t love Cole. She did not love him, god, she couldn’t love him. He was a demon.

She wouldn’t even dignify him by thinking of him. She didn’t think about him. What was there to think about? How he lied to her, how he had pretended to be some great guy — some guy who she could have even seen herself falling in love with (which she didn’t), only to turn around and be a demon? Not just a demon, Belthazor. The demon that had been trying to kill her and her sisters for months. Unbelievable. She couldn’t believe she let him into her life. She couldn’t believe she had been so dumb as to fall for him. She didn’t fall for him. Let’s set the record straight, she was never actually in love with Cole. Ever. She felt like she could be, for a second, somewhere in between the witty banter, inside jokes, and sparks flying between green eyes, but she never actually was.

What was there even to love about Cole? There was nothing to love about Cole. Everything that she could have possibly, potentially loved about Cole was all just some fabrication to get closer to her and her sisters. Every lingering touch, every late night conversation, every time their eyes seemed to catch each other from across the room, as if pulled together by some cosmic string, already alight with laughter, that was all fake. There was no point in thinking about it, because none of it was real. Whatever Cole she hadn’t fallen in love with, that wasn’t the real Cole. She wasn’t sure why she was even giving him so much credit. She had met other guys who were way better than Cole, who could keep up with her lightning wit, who continued to challenge and push her in new ways, who could talk about iconic artists of the late 15th century one second and then the Warriors’ starting lineup the next, who were six foot two with a face carved by the gods and who somehow always managed to make her heart flutter like she was seeing him for the first time; that wasn’t, like, a rare find. Okay, like, obviously men like that weren’t just single and wandering the streets of San Francisco right now (no, they were actually down in the underworld trying to shimmer through dimensions to avoid demonic bounty hunters after them because they saved the life of a witch. This witch, to be specific), but, like, clearly it was an easy enough character for Cole to create.

Because that’s what it was. A character. Prue kept reminding herself that over and over again. She didn’t even know Cole, not the real Cole anyway. What she knew was the person he pretended to be. And, yes, that person was someone who Prue was intrigued by, but none of it was real. It was easy to create a persona like that. It was easy to just put on some mask and become this guy who kept her on her toes and made her heart flutter like some lovesick kid on the playground whenever she saw him. It had to be easy. She didn’t want to think about the alternative. She wasn’t going to think about the alternative.

There was no alternative. Yes, there were moments when she was around Cole where she had been vulnerable and her guard had been down and he could have killed her a thousand different ways, but that was a part of the lie. Any time when she was alone with him and she had looked into his eyes and seen this desperate  _ want _ , this want to be open, to be honest, vulnerable, to be a better man — that was all a part of the act. He did it to make her trust him, to make her love him. She didn’t fall for it. She knew that whatever shred of humanity she saw in his eyes, whatever glimmer of hope, passion, love; it was fake. He put it there, or maybe she put it there, wishing for something better. 

Cole was evil, pure evil, and he couldn’t possibly fake such a genuine connection. No amount of studying up on her could have created what they had, so, while Cole was lying, it was, at the end of the day, Prue’s fault. She looked at him and she had seen what she had wished to see, she didn’t see what was there. Any semblance of love she might have thought she had seen was her own projection. Not that she was in love with him. She was just hoping that he was in love with her, so she might be able to fall in love with him in the future. Not that that would ever happen now.

They couldn’t have a future. He was a demon and she was a Charmed One. There was absolutely no way in heaven or hell that they would be able to make that relationship work. Obviously, she wouldn’t even want to make it work, because why would she want that? She didn’t even know him. And even if he wasn’t lying, if she had fallen in love with the real Cole, then… what was she supposed to do with that? He couldn’t come back now; the Source was out to kill him. The demonic bounty hunter he had saved her from was just the first of a long line of demons lining up for Cole’s head, so, like, even if she wanted to maybe see him again, just to talk to him, to kick his ass for everything he had done to her, there was a constant danger surrounding him now. A man like that couldn’t be in a committed relationship.

Not that she wanted a committed relationship with him now, knowing he was a demon. Maybe if he hadn’t have dragged his feet for so long and he had just done the job he was sent to do, he wouldn’t be hunted by the Source. If Cole hadn’t wasted his time pretending to be vulnerable in front of her, people wouldn’t be accusing him of being in love with a Charmed One. Now the entire underworld was out to get him, and for what? For a relationship that wasn’t even real? For two months of proximity to her?

It was only two months. She shouldn’t even be so hung up on him. She never got hung up on men, much less demons, and for what? Two months of a fake relationship, that shouldn’t even come close to being enough to leave him lingering in her mind, sitting at the edge between the subconscious and waking thought. Because even though Prue didn’t ever think about Cole, he still occupied her dreams. She wished she could cut him out of her head. She’d gladly take the knife and carve even the faintest idea of him out of the recesses of her mind, and leave it all to burn. She wished she could do that. It wouldn’t matter how painful it would be, anything would be better than the pain of him gone. It was like he left this gaping hole in her chest, some still bleeding wound, and she kept waiting for it to heal over so she could move on with her life, so she could try to find someone new, someone who actually loved her, but time wasn’t healing her. And somehow it was already February. Fourteenth, to be exact.

She didn’t think she was going to be alone on Valentine’s Day. Late January, early February she had already begun dropping hints of maybe what Cole might want to consider getting her. She knew what outfit she was going to wear. She had even written him a card. February first, she saw this cute, simple little card with a couple red hearts across the front and she bought it. She thought that it would be endearing to write him a letter early saying how she truly felt, then, once Valentine’s Day came, she’d give him the card, showing him how strongly she had felt about him from the beginning. It was supposed to be a cute gesture because she noticed how reserved Cole was acting the further their relationship progressed, and, since she could see this love he had for her in his eyes, feel it in his touch, she had wrongly assumed that he was just misreading her. The card was supposed to show that she felt the same way about him that he did her; that she wasn’t going to run or turn cold, that she loved him. But, of course, that wasn’t the case. Cole wasn’t pulling back because he was unsure of his feelings for her, he was pulling back to get a better angle for shoving an athame into her heart. She should burn that card. It was still in her bedroom, tucked away in a drawer of her vanity mirror. She had kind of forgotten about it in the chaos of everything, but right now, on Valentine’s, burning a symbol of their love might be exactly what she needed. Not that they were in love.

Prue pushed open the door to her bedroom, beelining for the vanity. She was on a mission now. Screw Cole and everything he pretended to be, screw his crappy attempt at love. Prue had definitely been doing all the heavy lifting in that relationship, Cole probably couldn’t even be open and vulnerable with her if he tried. Of course, clearly, he hadn’t been trying. Cole Turner did not love her, and Prue didn’t love him. That was going to be her truth once she burned the evidence to the contrary.

She retrieved the card, little red hearts peeking up at her out of the unsealed envelope. She tried to glower at them, but her eyes got caught on something in the mirror’s reflection. She turned around to see, placed delicately on her nightstand, a small potted orchid and a pink teddy bear holding a heart that said “ _ forever yours! _ ”, the same type of bear she had made some joke about two weeks previous. It was in some cheap drugstore; it was actually still the end of January, February hadn’t started yet, but they had already put out Valentine’s stuff. Cole had made some offhand comment about how it was way too early to be putting out Valentine’s things, it would scare all the new couples away. He had wrapped his arm around her as he said that, as if telling her that, yes, it would scare away the new couples, but not him. Prue had smiled and pointed out the pink bear.  _ Forever yours! _ If that wasn’t enough to scare a man away, she didn’t know what was. Cole had laughed. Prue missed that sound more than she would ever care to admit.

“I bought that the day you pointed it out.”

She jumped at the sound of Cole’s voice. Instinctively, she threw whatever was in her hands at him. There’s a big difference between a vanquishing potion and a valentine. The card fluttered to the floor at Cole’s feet. Prue’s eyes widened as she realized what she had done, and she quickly pulled the card back into her hand, red hearts becoming a blur as they zipped back across the room.

“I assume that isn’t for me?” Cole said, regarding the valentine.

“You’d assume correctly,” Prue snapped back, quickly tucking the card behind her back. She wanted her words to have more bite to them, but the vitriol wasn’t coming to the surface like normally did. She tried not to meet his eyes. No, she wouldn’t let him win. She tried to meet his eyes with the most withering gaze she could muster. And she saw him laugh.

“Prue,” Cole said, gesturing behind her. To the mirror behind her. To the mirror where, with her card held behind her back, Cole’s name was very obviously lettered across the back side of the envelope.

Prue scowled and slammed the card back into the vanity drawer. “Are you here to kill me?” she asked, shaking her bangs out of her face.

“I should be, huh? I mean, that would get the bounty hunters off my back, get me welcomed back into the Source’s fold with open arms,” Cole mused. “I should be here to kill you.”

A weight hung between them. Prue couldn’t vanquish him, she didn’t have the potion, however, she could still hurt him. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to. She wanted him to say why he was here.

“I just came to give you this,” he said, brandishing a Valentine’s card of his own. “I was, uh, gonna leave it with the bear, but, I guess since you’re already here…”

“You came to give me a card?” Prue didn’t move from the vanity, eyes level with Cole.

“Well, also the bear,” he said, lamely.

“You risked all this to give me a card?” She wanted to sound mean. She wanted to sound brutal, and usually she was so good at it, but she couldn’t get her words to cut. She sounded too hopeful.

Cole walked over to Prue and set the valentine on the vanity behind her. He lingered there, face inches from hers. “I risked all this because I love you,” he said, then shimmered out.

He was gone. All that was left was a bear, a valentine, an orchid, and Prue’s heart bleeding all over the floor.

“Cole, wait!” Prue pulled her valentine out of the drawer, gripping it tight in her hand. “Cole!”

Prue felt magic ripple around her as Cole shimmered back in. She slammed the card into his chest before she could think twice. Cole’s hand flew up, holding Prue’s hand to his heart, valentine trapped in between. She looked up at him. She still looked stubborn as ever — there was always a challenge in her stare, something daring Cole. But there was something else, too. Her fingers flattened as she laid her open palm across his chest.

She didn’t say it. She wasn’t going to say it. But the way her lips pressed softly against his, Cole felt it.

_ I love you, too. _


End file.
